


Loops

by sleeepyinseattle



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, F/F, Gen, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Past Abuse, Timeline Shenanigans, baby's first fic, because when i played that battle was fucking HARD, but reader is not frisk, frisk is like eight or so, frisk is mute, frisk speaks in sign language, i checked the feature just in case, in essence you are frisks's sort-of sibling, its a weird kind of fic, its basically asgore beating you up, just working through some feels ya know?, oh yeah its pretty obvious, reader's a teenager because teenaged angst is fun to write, some obsessive tendencies, sort of a vent fic, space things, talk of space and time, there is violence but it's not very graphic, you remember and sans knows, you've got baggage for days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-03 15:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13999536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeepyinseattle/pseuds/sleeepyinseattle
Summary: Two years after you and Frisk freed the Underground, you're still having nightmares. Though Toriel and Papyrus tried to get you to talk, you didn't. You didn't deserve it. They tried, and you failed.After a while, Sans gets in on the "I'm there for you" action. You're reluctant to talk. But who else to open up to, than a person with the same kind of baggage?





	1. Every Day

Every day, when you wake up, you sneak into the room next to you. It’s not hard to do—after a few days, you probably could’ve been a rogue in a role-playing game. You’d memorized where the creaking floor boards were, learned to turn the handle silently, and opened the door without a creak. You truly were a stealth master—at least, stealthy while walking down the upstairs hallway. There, in the light of the early morning, you’d check to make sure that Frisk was still there. That yes, you were still in Toriel’s house. That nothing had gone back. Stalking down the hallway late at night was now as easy as breathing. You had two years’ experience, anyways.  
  
Every day, you would go downstairs and start breakfast. Though Toriel didn’t require you to help make meals for the amalgamated family, you’d decided it would be your chore. Really, it was an excuse to get up earlier than everyone, at least. But it’d become a little piece of refuge. And a reason for them to keep you around.  
  
Every day, you’d try to make something new, so you could track it. This last Monday was pancakes, Tuesday was sausages and toast, Wednesday was cereal (it had been a quick morning for everyone), and so on. Papyrus praised your cooking skill and Toriel seemed to enjoy the wide array of food you knew how to make. And Frisk ate up anything you put in front of them. With their bright, cheerful smile, no less. Most days, you felt their praise was undeserved. It was just breakfast. Anyone could make breakfast if they had two years’ practice.  
  
For Christmas, Frisk had compiled a book of the underground’s favorite breakfast recipes. Most were wonderful. You’d gotten about halfway through before you uncovered the very Mettaton-like recipes with ingredients that weren’t… digestible. To put it bluntly, craft glitter. Despite his protests that it made the food look more elegant, darling—why couldn’t you just try? Until, last Valentine’s, Mettaton found edible, mica-based glitter. He bought you great stacks of it, in all colors of the rainbow (and a few that couldn’t be possible, strictly speaking) and _politely_ requested you make some of his recipes. You felt obligated (and the glitter did add a sort of pizazz to breakfasts).  
  
At least you could still put your foot down about the ‘one human soul’ his quiche required.  
  
Today, after weighing several options, you began making breakfast burritos. As the bacon began sizzling in the pan, you heard a pop and knew that Sans was near. “Hey,” you say, not looking over. There could only be two things he’d do right now. For one thing, he could go start the coffee machine. For another, he could sit there and chat. Today was the latter of the two options.  
  
“Hay is for horses,” he said. You heard the telltale scrape of the kitchen chair and the great, wet farting noise of a well-placed whoopie-cushion. “Well, I’m losing my touch.”  
  
“Frisk put it there yesterday.”  
  
“They’re getting good,”  
  
Turning around with a smile, you agree. “You’ve taught them well.”  
  
“So have you.”  
  
You shrug, pulling the bacon from the pan and placing them onto some paper towels. As silence stretches between you two, you wonder if Sans has gone to sleep. Absentmindedly, you crack the eggs one-handed into the bowl as you whisk them with some milk and salt. Into the already greased pan they go. As you hear the eggs sizzle away, just as they should, you begin to gently scrape the pan.   
  
People always complain about making good eggs. It really isn’t that hard. Medium heat, hot pan, gently scrape into fluffy pieces and cook until just together. You’ve just turned 16 and you know how to do it. Though, you’ve had years of practice even before the Underground. Since you were usually the oldest kid in the house, you got pick of the chores. And if that meant picking one that woke you up earlier, but gave you a reason to stay away from everyone else, then you picked that. So, breakfast it was.  
  
“You’re a good sibling to them, ya’know?”  
  
You turn around to stare at Sans, who has a physics book open in front of him. He isn’t reading it, though. Instead, he’s looking up at you with his head in his hand. The two of you had had this argument before. Multiple times, you’re sure of it. They’re all there, in your notebooks. Once a little over a month ago, one more time five months ago, and once just after you, Frisk, and the monsters busted out of the Underground. Well, Frisk busted you all out. You helped, you guessed, insofar as being the punching bag. And swinging around the knife. (Though Sans still seemed a bit skittish when you wielded a chef’s knife in the kitchen.) Not that you held a grudge—it was your choice, anyway.  
  
It was either you or Frisk, and they’re just a little kid. It had to be you, then.  
  
“Just hear me out,” he started again.  
  
The eggs are done, and you take the pan and roughly shove them onto a plate. Next up, warming the tortillas. You slather a bit of butter onto the pan before you smack a tortilla down. “Sans—” you groan.  
  
“No, just listen,” he interrupts, pushing his chair from the table with a scrape. “I know your arguments. You’re not a good person; you’ve hurt people before—even if I’ve never seen you kill much more than a spider. You’re not smart—even though you can understand chemistry and biology. You even learned sign language to talk to Frisk. In two months—they told me.” He gives you a proud smile before continuing, “You’re not nice—but you do nice things. You’re not good—even though you’ve been good to us. And,” he paused, sneaking a piece of bacon, “more importantly, you care. You do.”  
  
“Fine, so what if I do?” You gesture at him with your bacon-greased, eggy spatula. “I’m nice to like, five people.”  
  
“I think you’re missing Alphys, and Undyne, and you’re nice enough to Asgore—though you never want to talk to him.” Though he looks pointedly at you, you’re skillful enough to dodge that particular topic.  
  
“Seven and a half, then.” You flip the tortilla onto a plate and wrap a burrito, complete with tomatoes and some melting cheese. Sliding it over to Sans, you ask, “Does me being nice to seven and a half people really change Frisk? No. They’ve always been nice. You didn’t see them before. Even when the world was unkind, they were nice. They were polite. They were forgiving. I’m not that. They didn’t learn it from me. They couldn’t have learned it from me.” Turning around to your pan, you slap another tortilla down. While it sizzles, you stew in your emotions for a couple seconds longer. “Why do you always feel the need to make me feel… I don’t know… like we’re related somehow?” When it’s done, you flip it onto another plate, finish wrapping the burrito, and set it in the warmed oven. “We’re not. How many times have we stated this? We were just in the same house, okay?”  
  
“Kid,” he says around a mouthful of burrito, “I don’t know what kind of baggage you’ve got, but you’re not an awful person. I’ve seen horrible people before. People who’ve hurt others without a second thought. You’re not that bad.”  
  
“What if…” you grumble, “I don’t want Frisk to be like me?” Finishing yet another burrito, you pause. “What if I don’t want Frisk to be lonely like me. I haven’t had a family since I was three. Even… even here,” you gesture at the house around you, “I still don’t feel like I’m family. They know how to do it, to just gather up people around them and… form bonds or some shit… I don’t. I’ve been on my own for as long as I can remember. I’ve never been able to imagine myself any other way.” You look around at Sans, who sits waiting for you to continue. With a sigh, you add, “I don’t want them to be fucked up like I am.”  
  
“You’ve got us, and your school friends. And anyways, kid… you don’t seem fucked up,” Sans says.  
  
Chortling, you spin around to the pan, saying, “Buddy, you don’t know the half of it.”  
  
“Maybe one day,” he says. You hear the scraping of his chair and you keep yourself from turning around, “you’ll tell me about it.” By the time you’re done with your fourth burrito, he’s popped out of the room.  



	2. Notebooks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Sans tries to get you to open up, you close up instead. And then, you retreat to your notebooks.

The gang—and by that you mean Papyrus, Frisk, Alphys, and Undyne—are watching anime on the TV. You’re in the room, but the Japanese floats past you. Instead of intently reading the subtitles, you’re intently reading the words in your notebook. As you think of what to add to your journal, your hand twirls your pen in intricate circles. After about two years of practice, your hand could flip and glide the pen across your knuckles, twist it on your palm, and balance it on a fingertip. All without really looking at it.

“Whatchya writing?” Jumping a bit, you look up to see Sans looking at you with a quizzical, if a bit concerned, expression.

“What?” Though you wished there wasn’t, there’s a hint of aggression in your voice. Well, you _are_ a teenager.

“You seemed…” He rubs the back of his skull. “Concerned.”

Shrugging it off, you mumble, “Just trying to write in my notebook.”

“Oh.” He sits down across the table from you. His eyes never stray towards the paper, making it obvious that he’s not peeking. “You write in it every day?”

“Yes,” you say. Again, your voice is forceful, but this time it’s quick. Too quick. You want him to stop asking about your notebook. Its yours, after all. And it’s private. There’s things in here you’ve said to no one, and you want to keep it that way. Taking a quick breath, you add, “Isn’t that the point of a journal?”

“Oh, it’s a journal.” His smile seems jovial. But being around the smiling skeleton has educated you on all the minute ways a smile can change. Mean something other than happiness. His eyes are wide, staring right at you. His smile is big, but not too wide. Even. Practiced. He’s sat in the seat across from you, not in his usual spot at the end. He wants to look at you, and for you to look at him.

“I’m not talking about it,” you say. That seemed to have just about sussed him up.

His grin falters a little. “That transparent, huh?”

“Just a bit,” you say, clicking your pen and closing your book. “Why’re you asking about my journal. Haven’t you seen it before?”

“I’ve seen you writing in it before, yeah. Just curious is all. Can’t a guy be curious?”

“Curiosity killed the cat,” you say.

“But satisfaction brought it back.” He pauses, running his fingers over his jaw. “Can you satisfy one question of mine?”

“I’ve already done that a couple times,” you remind him.

“Just one more question, yeah?”

“Fine. There it was. That was your ‘one more question,’” you say, standing up. The chair scrapes loudly behind you. Yep, you are definitely acting like a stereotypical teenager. From their seat in the center of the monsters, Frisk looks over at you. Concern whips through their face before you give them a worn smile. “I just need to finish my homework.” They nod and look back at the TV screen. You’re clear, for now.

“I feel like you’re using that as an excuse.” Propping his head on his jaw, he asks, “If you’d oblige me one more question, it’s this: why can’t you trust us?”

“I don’t trust anyone,” you say to the wood grain of the table.

“You trust Frisk.”

“Frisk is an exception.”

“Frisk is the only exception,” Sans grumbles. “Can you make an exception for me?”

“You’ve used up all your questions. And I really do have homework. I was putting off my history essay.” With that, you walk upstairs, doing your darndest not to stomp, not to slam the door, and not to flop onto your bed with a frustrated sigh. You try your best, but it might come off as stomping up to your room to pout.

Well, what’s a teenager to do?

So, you sulk. It’s been a while since you’ve stewed in your own self-pity enough. Flipping back through your notebook, you count the last few days. Out of the last week, four of them have included nightmares. Understandable. It’s not like you’ve really figured out what’s going on there. And a couple days ago, you had that ‘talk’ with Sans. Last Saturday, you heard a shout at the wee hours of the morning while you were finishing your science fair project. It _sounded_ like Sans, but the next morning he didn’t say anything. You’d written it down anyways. Were they connected? It’s a bit too early for you to tell.

Letting the book flop onto your face, you stew some more. If someone was trying to get you to feel better about yourself, wouldn’t it be Toriel? She’d been comfortable enough asking a teenager with a dubious past to live with her indefinitely. She’s the open, maternal type. It suited her modus operandi to be caring towards anyone near here. But she did. You remember the first few months of her cheering you on, literally and metaphorically.

What about Papyrus, ever positive and supportive little brother? He had tried, on occasion. Leaning over, you fish around under your bed for the box. You pull it out from under your bed, bringing a small amount of dust with it. The harmless kind of dust, borne of mites and dirt. Okay, maybe you should’ve moved your bed to vacuum under there. The feeling of it reminds you of bad memories.

From inside, you pull out the first journal you’d written. Leafing through the pages, you see all of Papyrus’s failed attempts. His coaching attempt—until he realized you cared less about sports than you did writing essays. And that was saying something. His attempt to get you to learn cooking from him—until he realized you could already cook pasta without burning the house down. And his final, most amusing attempt, trying to get you to date. That was a spectacular fail, ending with everyone laughing at the awkwardness between yourself and your supposed blind date, who happened to be Aaron.

Muscles are cool and all, but he just isn’t your cup of tea. Plus, you weren’t sure if anyone would want to date you. Most of the Underground knew _about_ you, but they didn’t know you.

Looking over the books again, you realized how little has changed. In the first few weeks of the free Underground, you still had the same few nightmares. At the same frequency, too. Maybe you’ve just adjusted to them.

With a sigh, you slip the book back into its spot and shove the box back under your bed. Okay. Two years is long enough for you to figure out what’s up with those, isn’t it?

But you don’t really want to think about such things. You’ve got homework to do, you tell yourself. Dutifully, you sit up and retrieve your history textbook, groaning as you open it and begin reading the dry, dull stories about boring, old white guys. Some of the text boxes are moderately more interesting, but they’re too brief to give you anything to care about. At least your teacher can quiz you on all their names and important dates!

Sitting up, you lean over and pull your laptop onto your bed, clicking into your writing program. Dully, you type out the necessary information and begin to weave it into an essay. A while later, you realize it’s dark out and Toriel’s left dinner outside your door. She really didn’t have to do that, go out of her way to come drop it off. She even doodled a cute snail with an appropriately cheery line of encouragement onto the napkin.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why no scheduling feature? That'd help me immensely. Oh well. Here's the second chapter of this odd fic. Practicing different scenes that are only tangentially related is kind of fun. Good practice for other pieces. I feel as though It's closer to how TV shows are, as opposed to most novels. Or at least, the kind I read.


	3. Failure

It’s a couple weeks later. In your hand, you’ve got your history essay. The grade… isn’t good. But it isn’t _too_ bad, either. The whole class bombed it, except for that dude who always gets As. How does he even read that book when it’s so dull? Before you unlock the door, you take the opportunity to stuff the essay to the bottom of your bag, passing it off as looking for your keys (not that anyone was watching). You try to tell yourself nobody will care about your B+. But it’s hard to imagine someone would support a failure. At least, a failure like you.

If Frisk came home with a B+, you’d throw them a party. You’d show them all the love and support you could muster. They wouldn’t be fucked up like you. Not if you could help it.

The house is empty. It’s a little piece of bliss, to hear the soft sounds of wood creaking in the breeze. The sound of the water heater warming up the tank. Someone’s left the TV sound bar on—you can hear the faint crackle of the electricity in the wires. It makes a particular buzzing noise that nobody else seems to notice.

Or at least, you thought the house was empty. Beyond the quiet sounds, you can hear the rhythmic sounds of someone breathing. Frisk is at school—and they wouldn’t be home for an hour or so. It can’t be Toriel or Papyrus. The goat monster is still teaching, and Papyrus has a shift helping out at Asgore’s flower shop. Or is he training his gym members… It’s hard to keep track of his shifting schedule.

Tip-toeing through the house, you reach the stairs. Now, you can place the noise with 100% accuracy. It’s Sans, probably napping off another odd-hours shift at who knows where. He never specified where he was working, just that he was and when he’d be home. After a few months of confusion, Toriel had forced him to keep an updated calendar in the kitchen, for her own sanity’s sake. You check it. And indeed, there is a night-shift penciled in.

Sighing, you make your way to your room. It was harder, now, to dispose of your failure of a grade since someone was at home. Your usual plan was to rip it to shreds and bury it in the garden under the daisy bushes. Then, you’d wash your hands of any evidence—quite literally. But the sound of ripping paper and digging up the plants would probably wake Sans.

Okay, you could crumple up each page, dunk them into the toilet, and flush them once they were soggy. But that could clog the pipes, and then it’d be more annoying for everyone. That wouldn’t do. Could you put it in the fire place? No, you still can’t tear it to pieces, and crumpling it up would mean a chance of someone seeing it. The garbage disposal was out, too.

Quiet as you could, you reach under your bed to pull out your box. But you can’t reach it. A bit confused, you lean forwards and stick your whole head under.

It’s gone.

With a suddenness that could rival the big bang, and a clumsiness that would put cartoons to shame, you: shriek; bash your head on the ground; then jam your chin on your bed; flop from the bed onto the ground; smack your back onto the hard wood floor; and make enough ruckus to wake up anyone, namely a certain, sleeping skeleton.

Yeah, there was no way to hide your history paper now.

“Fuck… fuck… fuck, fuck, fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuck…”

“Whoa kid, trying to join the circus?”

Sans stands in your doorway, rubbing sleep from his eyes. In his hoodie and slippers, he looks normal, and somehow a bit more disheveled. He seems… more tired than usual. “You okay, kid?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” you say, scrambling to your knees. In the hubbub, your history paper had slipped from your grip and, as though placed there by the devil himself, sat at Sans’s feet. If it was possible, your life had turned into a clichéd sitcom.

“This that your history paper?” Before you could fluster out anything, he leans forward and picks it up, turning it over in his hand. “B+?”

You freeze. Okay, you could argue this one out. Everyone—save that one fucking bastard—had done badly on this one. Your score wasn’t bad, compared to the class average. And you’d done well before in this semester, so the paper hadn’t brought your grade down. Not even a point. Just 0.34%, you’d calculated it. So, you still had a solid A. And you got 95-97s on all your tests in your other classes, so he couldn’t—

“Hey, that’s pretty good, kid.”

His sleepy grin stops your mind in its tracks. “But… it’s a B+…?”

“Yeah, which was like one point away from being an A,” he points out, flipping the paper. You see the distinct red ‘89%’ on the page. It makes you sick. “That’s great, for a class you don’t like.”

“It’s a B+, though,” you mumble. You weren’t supposed to get less than an A-, and that was pushing it. You can’t afford anything but perfect.

“Yeah. It’s good.” He looks at you, confused. “You sure you didn’t hit your head too hard on the ground, kid? I know you get lots of As, but a B+ isn’t going to make us like you less…”

“Sure.”

Your abrupt answer makes him pause. His eyebrows furrow. “You don’t sound convinced.”

“Everyone did badly on it,” you say.

“It sounded boring, so yeah. I can see that.”

“It won’t drop my grade down a percent.”

“No, it shouldn’t.”

“Just 0.34%”

“You calculated it?”

It seemed more like a rhetorical question, so you press on.  “I have As in all my other classes.” Your palms start to warm up. Your stomach starts to curl into itself. And you can feel every pore on your body begin to sweat.

“Yeah. You’re smart, kid.”

He takes a step closer to you, eyes narrowing a bit. You flinch back, looking down. Don’t look at them when they’re angry. Don’t give them a chance to be angry. Just be quiet, do your job, and get out of their way.

“Kid.” Sans looks at you with a soft expression. “You did good.”

“But… it’s a B.”

“No. It’s a B+.”

“It’s not an A.”

Cocking his head to the side, Sans put your paper on your desk. Sitting down cross-legged, he looks at you. “That’s true.”

“You’re not…”

“I’m not… what?”

Don’t use mad. They don’t like it when you say they’re mad. It makes them feel wrong, and they’re not wrong. It’s your job to go to school. You’re supposed to do your job well. Which means As. As are average, they said. It’s easy to get As. Only an idiot can’t get all As. You’re just not trying hard enough. Don’t use mad. What’s the word? The word that can’t make them mad.

“You’re not… disappointed?”

“Why would I be disappointed?”

“It’s not an A.”

“We’ve established this—just… Look. Kid. One B+ isn’t going to tank your grade. Heck, we don’t even _care_ what your grades are.”

They always say this. But they do care. They know that the better you do, the more likely it is you’ll find a family. Everyone wants little kids, like Frisk. But if they want an older kid, they want someone to be proud of. And you’re not talented at art, or music, or sports. The only thing you have left is school. But that’s okay. Families want smart kids. They don’t want dumb kids. You’ve _failed_. Nobody’s going to want a failure. No one’s going to want _you_.

You don’t realize it, but as your brain was running a mile a minute, your mouth was too. You just said all that aloud. Loud enough that Sans could hear. Loud enough that anyone in the house could hear it, if you two weren’t alone.

Taking a shaking breath in—why are you shaking? —you close your eyes. You can hear the quiet sounds of the house. The humming of the pipes, the light creak of the floor boards. And Sans, shuffling forwards on his butt to put a hand on your shoulder.

“Kid.”

You don’t open your eyes. You don’t want to see his face. He’s mad. He _has_ to be mad. If you know anything about the older skeleton, it’s that Sans is not a loud person. When he’s angry, he must be quiet, too. And you don’t want to see his angry face. You haven’t seen it, and you don’t want to know. You feel his hand on your shoulder but you won’t—can’t—open your eyes.

“Kid, I don’t know what human adoption is like. But lemme tell you this. You’re not dumb. No, really. You’re one of the smartest humans I’ve ever met. And you haven’t failed—not to us. Never to us. Not even the dumb rules your school’s got. What did that paper say… a D is a failure? A B+ is better than average, even.” You feel his hand trail up from your shoulder. He places it on your cheek, thumb wiping away tears. When did you start to cry? “And yeah, nobody _wants_ to fail, but we all do eventually. If this feels like a failure to you, then I’m not going to argue with what it feels like. ‘Cause you feel things in a way that I don’t. But to us, _all_ of us, it isn’t a failure. And even if you show us a D, or an F, or a 0%, if you _tried_ then it’s not a failure to us. It’ll never be a failure to us.” He put his other hand on your face and says, his voice stern but warm, “You’ll _never_ be a failure to us.”

You sit there, with your eyes closed and your face in Sans’s hands. Nobody’s ever said that to you. Toriel’s implied it, Papyrus acts like it, and Frisk embodies it. But nobody’s ever _said_ it.

It’s hard, but you do. You open your eyes and look at Sans. His ever-smiling face is cut by a slight frown. Breathing, you take a second to read his face. His eyebrows are pointed up, slight creases where a forehead would’ve wrinkled. While his gaze is steady, it’s not insistent. His smile is stretched thin, but not too squashed flat. “You’re… not mad.”

“Kid, I hate history, and I never got anything _remotely_ better than a C-, if that. I’m not mad.”

“You’re not.”

“No. I promise.”

“Oh… okay.”

“Okay’s good. It’s better than sure.” His smile widens. You try and smile through the drying tears at him. “Look, kid.” He leans forwards. Freezing, your mind plays out the worst that could happen— ‘I’m not mad, I’m disappointed…’ —but he gives you a hug. “We’ve all got baggage. The only way we can unpack it is if we talk about it.”

“You… sound like a self-help book,” you laugh. It’s muffled, as if you’re water-logged.

He pushes away and leans back, surveying your response. “I’ve read a few.”

“Really.”

“Okay, really is just as bad as sure. Yes, I have.” He rubs the back of his skull, looking at the ground between you both. “They’re pretty helpful. If you want, I can lend one to ya.”

“That’s okay.”

“I won’t push ya if you don’t wanna. But they’re good. They know what they’re talking about.”

“Sure.”

“Back to square one…” he sighs, smiling. You try and smile back.

“Sans?”

“Yeah?” The light in his eyes brightens. Oooh, he thinks you’re going to open up. Yeah, that’s not going to happen any time soon.

Taking a deep breath, you ask, “Do you know what happened to the box under my bed?”

“The box under your bed?”

“I guess not then…”

“Toriel said she was going to do some ‘Spring Cleaning,’ whatever that meant. I don’t know what the difference is. She cleans just fine the other three seasons.” He chuckles a bit to himself. “Try your closet. Whenever she decides to invade my room to dismantle my mountain of socks, she puts them all in the closet.”

“Thanks.” You sit there for a bit.

After a beat, Sans gets the message and he stands. “I won’t tell Toriel about the grade,” he says. “It’ll be our secret.”

“Okay.”

“Okay’s better than sure.” Tottering towards the door, he turns around and gives you a quick, cheerful salute before wandering towards his room. After a few minutes, he’s asleep. The sounds of his rhythmic sleeping return. Floorboards contract as the house cools for the day. The sound bar for the TV buzzes still, just in your audible range. It’s safe again.

Only then do you move. With your usual stealth, you shift towards your closet, sliding the door open. And there, unopened but dusted, is your box of journals. You open the lid, and see dust settled on the books. Nobody looked inside, nobody touched them, nobody saw your secrets. Nobody knows how fucked up you are.

With a sigh, you put the lid back on and slide it across the floor to its rightful spot under the bed. That way, you can sleep on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Saving to post for later is a good option, at least. That way, future me can be lazy. Since present-me (past me by the time you're reading this, my friend) has the spoons and the gumption.
> 
> I'd rather eat a cockroach than post these chapters... at least before editing them five times over.
> 
> This is the longest chapter by length, I believe. And it's really just 'cause it's dialogue-heavy. If I could describe myself as a writer, it'd be that I generally write dialogue first, and then forget that characters should-- you know, do things? Perhaps while they talk?


	4. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things start developing, you write more in your journal, and something Sans does is... interesting.

And you do. Late that night—or is it early the next morning, it's too dark to tell—you wake up. After years of practice, you’ve gotten good at waking up from a nightmare without so much as a peep. Your breathing is quick, but not loud. If you’re crying, you don’t sniffle or hiccup. You don’t mumble as you force yourself to wake up all the way, instead of lying in the half-sleep that means more sleeping, more dreams, more nightmares.

Instead, as is your routine, you roll onto your side and pull the box out from under your bed. Opening the lid, you pull you latest journal out. In the spiral binding is a pen. You pull it out and add to yesterday’s already full entry.

After Frisk had stumbled on your first diary, you’d taken to writing in code. It wasn’t uncrackable, but it was better than plain English. It’s a simple cypher.

When you were a kid, you’d gotten a little key chain for Christmas. Just the key chain. But it was a cypher wheel, the inside alphabet spinning. You could code in a pair and find the translation. (It was a good year overall. You got lucky—the foster family actually gave you a Christmas present, a first for you.)

With a bit of practice, you didn’t need it anymore. Which was great, since Garret had stolen it from you a few weeks later (and subsequently lost it). He’d been adopted a month later.

In your mind’s eye, you see the wheel turning. Today—if it was still today, and not tomorrow—is Wednesday the 23rd. So, the inside W spun around to line up with 23rd letter which is… W. With a sigh, you spin it around to line up with E (2+3 is 5, so E). Which you haven’t used that month so it’s safe enough. If you’d already used it, you would’ve picked H, since two to the third power is eight. But you don’t like to get that complicated.

Your hand starts to jumble the letters in your mind without you having to really think about it. The nightmare begins to replay in your mind like a movie. It’s easier, this way, to feel detached from it. Writing down your nightmares hasn’t lessened their frequency, but it does make the morning softer once the dawn breaks. So, you sit there, your hand writing a mess of letters and your mind playing a movie of your own demise.

This wasn’t the first time you’d dreamed of dying. It wasn’t even the only way you’d died in your dreams. Before the Underground, your nightmares were of other things. Broken bones and stitches and school-yard bullies. Sure, you still had those thoughts now, but they were now wrapped up with a few new additions. Like being stabbed through with a trident by Asgore. Or being burned to death with fire magic, by Asgore. Or getting roped in with fire, or encircled by it, or nearly dodging it but feeling the telltale singe. And dying. By Asgore, standing over your dead body with a solemn expression.

All in all, you’ve dreamed of dying by Asgore’s hand about ten different ways. In one, Asgore had turned to dust before you. You’d ripped Flowey to shreds in that dream, angry tears streaming down your face. In one, you could’ve sworn _you_ dusted Asgore, and then felt a weird, pulling jerk and you were right back where you started. In one of those ten dreams, you died without you doing or saying anything. You were just immediately killed. That one was a breath of fresh air, actually.

It didn’t feel as real as the others did.

Tonight’s dream was pretty gruesome, compared to the sanctuary of the quick death. You fought Asgore with a tiny kitchen knife, and a golden locket against your chest. Frisk stood in the background, cheering for you with their silent mouth and loud hands. It was hard to tell what they were saying, what with all the fire and the blood and the distance. But you could tell by the determination in their eyes that they were hopeful.

You didn’t deserve it. You always failed.

As you skipped to the side, avoiding one line of fire, you felt the heat singe your skin. With a cry you hit the deck, on your hands and knees. The knife clattered away from your grip, spinning off past the box you were trapped in. Crying out to Asgore, you ask him again to stop. The grim look of resolution on his face tells you he won’t. He never does. As you dodge another wave of attacks, you skid towards your bitty knife and pick it back up. There’s dust wedged into the handle.

It took another few hits, but you can tell his health is dwindling. Again, you ask if he’ll stop fighting. He looks away.

From the distance, you can see Frisk sign, calling out to them both. “There must be another way!”

 _No, kiddo,_ you think, _there isn’t_. It goes like this. There’s four choices. One choice is neither of you die now. You live your short lives underground, never seeing the sun again. Once you humans are old, one of you dies. Their soul is the seventh soul, and frees everyone from the underground. Nobody wants this one. Nobody gets to live above the world until they’re old. It’s not fair. It’ll take too long. (And in the back of your mind, you know you’ll die first. You don’t want the decades of life between now and dying. Waiting for something inevitable is so tiring.)

One choice is that Asgore kills you both. You doubt he’d choose that answer, and the look on his eyes confirms that.

Another choice is that he kills Frisk. You won’t let it happen.

So, the only option is that you die. Your soul is the seventh, and you free the Underground. You, after all, were the elder of the two. They’re just a little kid.

And they shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was never your intention to bring them along with you, but they wouldn’t leave your side. Somehow—despite knowing they’d never seen the hits, or heard the screaming, or noticed the flinches—they knew you needed to leave. They’d followed you out the house late that night, their pockets empty—save for a stick they’d found and a half-sticky plaster. But you’d promised. You’d promised to take care of them. You’d promised to protect them. Then look what happened.

It only seemed natural, then, to let Asgore take your soul. All in a day’s work for a failure of a sibling.

So, you dodged and you swerved and you fought and you pleaded and you cried. But Asgore stood, statuesque in his continued success. Each and every time you stood toe to toe with him, knife in hand, he won. He killed you. Each and every time.

Except, you knew that never happened. It _couldn’t_ have happened. He’d stood in front of you and Flowey had taken everyone in the underground, wrapped his disgusting vines around them, and stole the six souls. Then he stole everyone’s souls. Then he was Asriel. And then he was Flowey, again. Cowed and defeated. And then he was gone. Frisk told you to let him go. The barrier had fallen, and the kiddo had found a loophole.

And so, there you all are. Above ground, living a normal life by all accounts. Toriel and Papyrus and Sans and Frisk and you. All in one house. This quiet house.

But nobody seems to remember all of that. Nobody but you.

Now finished recounting your nightmare, you close your book and slip the pen into its rings. You’d need a new notebook soon. But you don’t want to ask for a journal. It’s easier to pass it off as a school-necessary notebook. Thinking back to your full backpack, you decide to ask for a new notebook for chemistry. If anyone noticed, that one was looking full enough to necessitate one.

As you set your journal back in the box, you hear a sharp gasp from another room. In the quiet of the house, you can hear Papyrus’s nyeh-heh-heh-ing snores. And Toriel’s soft, grunting snores. (You would hesitate to say she sounds like a goat, despite the fact that she kind of does.) Frisk never snored or made a sound, but if they had woken up in the night, they would’ve crawled into bed with you. And you are quite alone. But a certain, rhythmic breathing had stopped.

So, Sans was awake. Did you wake Sans? You already felt like you were on thin ice with the older skeleton after that fiasco earlier today. No matter what he said, it felt as though you’d missed something and came out worse for wear. As quiet as you could, you finish hiding away your journals and lie back down. Nobody was to know you’d woken up.

Though you close your eyes and try to ignore the quiet house, it’s difficult to. Not when Sans is mumbling something under his breath. Through the walls, you can’t hear what it is. But it’s insistent.

A soft pop breaks the silence of your room. _Your_ room. He’s teleported here. Now. He iss standing by your bed, mumbling. And now you can hear him.

“You’re here. You’re here. They haven’t reset. The kiddo didn’t reset.”

You don’t dare open your eyes. As the reality of his words sink in, you hear another pop and he’s gone. So, you sit up.

He… worries about that too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lookie here. I'm a mean, evil writer who likes to torture my beloved characters. And, by value of writing in second person-- you, my friend, are put in that position. I'm just a nasty person, in my heart of hearts. 
> 
> In any case, saving the chapters ahead of time means that I don't have to worry about them. Just that I have to remember to be a good sport and log on every few days to post the chapter. Hah. Like that'd happen perfectly. (Past me says she's sorry, in advance, for what future me is doing... or not doing.)
> 
> I haven't had many recurring nightmares before, but I've had recurring dreams. Ones that I'd loosely say are the style of the drawings from A Series of Unfortunate Events. That sketchy feeling. It even /tastes/ a bit weird, in those dreams. Like it's a different texture. Anyways, weird personal things aside, I hope you enjoy.


	5. Ice Cream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which you hang out with Alphys and Undyne for a while, and realize just how worried everyone is.

Summer snuck up on the household. After the first week of summer vacation, Frisk was laid up with a head cold. They always got sick in the summertime. Something about the changing weather. Now though, they're better.

You sit, rolling a cool, metallic ball between yourself and Undyne. She's laying in a blow-up pool filled to the brim with water (or it would’ve been, if she wouldn’t lean halfway out of it to ogle at Alphys in her bathing suit). “When’s the ice cream going to be done?” The fish monster whines, slapping the ball back to you.

“After it’s done churning. And then we’ve got to freeze it a few hours. Tonight, though.”

“Ugh.” That was all the answer you get before she flops face-first into the water. You smile, looking at the stacked clouds in the distance.

When you told Frisk that you _could_ make ice cream at home, they’d jumped on the idea. And when the kiddo jumped on an idea, they wouldn’t let it go for anything.  They were a terrier of a kid. You’d seen that level of hyper-fixation a few times before, in the underground. Like helping out the amalgamates in Alphys’s lab. Yeah, for a while you’d been creeped out by them. But really, can you blame her? You made dumber decisions than she had, anyways. You were the reason Frisk followed you out of the house. You lead them to Mt. Ebott. And you told them to stay inside that cave while you scouted for some water. At least Alphys apologized and tried to fix things.

Later that day, Papyrus bought this little ball, that made like, two whole cups of ice cream. Which made you sad—you wanted more than a spoonful or two. Another hour later, and Toriel had whipped up a small, tester batch of ice cream. It was cinnamon and butterscotch, which always left a sour taste in your mouth. It tasted like something you didn’t deserve. But Frisk loved it, so you didn’t say anything. When they ate it, they smiled this fully satisfied smile. And you can’t take that away from them.

“Hey,” Undyne bubbles from underneath the water, “what’s Sans up to?”

“Putting up his telescope on the roof. There’s a meteor shower tonight.”

“A meteor shower? Is that the only time he bathes?” She laughs, splashing the water.

You smirk. “No, it’s a bunch of space dust and rocks that fall from a particular part of the sky. At this time of year, they’re falling from the Delta Aquariids. From this latitude, they’re hard to see. But he’s up there anyways.”

“Nerd.” But she says it lovingly. “How do you know so much about it?”

“I took an astronomy class years ago. We went on a field trip to the local observatory to watch it. It wasn’t much. The Perseid meteor shower is better. Brighter. More falling from the sky.”

“Shooting stars?” Alphys pops her head up from the book she's reading. “I’ve seen a… seen a few.”

“Oh, those streaks of light? Those are rocks from space? GNARLY!” Undyne shoots up, splashing you and Alphys with water. The scientist shrieks and jerks her book away. “I want to fight one!”

“Good luck. Most burn up in the atmosphere.”

“Oh.” She deflated as the spunk left her. “Maybe next year.”

“Sure.”

You go back to watching the clouds, your eyes squinting at the glaring sun, and Undyne goes back to her pool. “You seem tired,” she says, after a few more minutes of quiet. She rolls the ice cream ball between her webbed hands, looking at it with an intent expression.

“Oh.”

“You’re like Sans. But don’t worry!” The toothy grin she gives you makes you fearful for the little blow-up pool. “You’re not lazy like he is. So, you’re better than him. But you both are always tired.”

“I have to get up early for summer school,” you excuse.

“Yeah, but more than that. Not just sleep tired, but _bone_ tired.”

The look on your face tells her that yes, you’ve heard that one; yes, you’ve heard it better; and yes, you’re quite done hearing it. Her smile falters somewhat. It makes you feel guilty, so you look back at the clouds. Dammit—you can’t even let her make a simple pun without making her feel bad.

“What I mean to say is that… well… you can talk to us.” She rolls the ball back to you. It hits you in your leg, the cool plastic soothing against your skin.

“About what?”

“Whatever’s bo-bothering you,” Alphys pipes up. From above the manga she’s reading, you see her glasses shimmer with interest. “We-we can listen.”

“What’s bothering me,” you say, looking at the ball of ice cream, “is that we won’t have enough of this to share.” Rolling it between your hands, you feel the cold of the ice. In the summer heat, it feels wonderful. But it also hurts. It hurts your palms to touch it, to hold it, to keep it in your grasp. But you keep your hands on it. Its easier to feel this than it is to look at them.

“Y-yeah! You’re right, human teen! It only makes, like, four cups!” Though she agrees, you hear a line of skepticism in Undyne’s words.

“Is-is that really what’s bothering y-you?” At least Alphys is more up front about it.

“Sure.”

After rolling the ball to Undyne, you stand up. “I’ve got some homework to do before tomorrow. And Toriel—well Frisk—said I can’t miss dinner or I miss ice cream. So, I’ll see you two later.” With that, you open the back door and close it, feeling the stuffy air of the house blanket you in a bit of comfort.

Upstairs, you open your window to catch any breeze that blows past the house. There isn’t much. The muggy heat seems to cling to the fence beyond your walls, a shield against any invading wind. Unlike in winter, when it makes the backyard a little haven of soft snow, it’s annoying now. You could give your left kidney for a cool breeze.

This is why you went to the library after school most days. Nobody asked you questions you won’t answer. And there's centralized air conditioning.

Taking out your summer homework, you begin to dissect the particle physics in your textbook. Your notes start to take shape, and after fazing out for a bit, you realize you’d started to write it in code. This morning, your teacher told you that handing in notes was, indeed, a thing. It was graded, even. So, it was necessary to write it for her to actually understand. Sighing, you rip the paper out and begin translating it into normal English, not your garbled-up version.

From downstairs, you can hear Alphys and Undyne discussing things. It starts out just them talking about the ice cream, and the weather, and their other friends you didn’t care to meet. There were already so many people to keep track of in the Underground. You didn’t bother. Frisk is the only one who seems to matter. The others—Papyrus and Toriel and the lesbians downstairs—they came with hanging around the kiddo. Eventually, though, their conversation wanders its way to discussing you.

“The human’s always tired,” Undyne complains. She splashes in her little pool for a bit, leaning to pass the ice-cream maker back to Alphys. “I don’t understand why. Toriel’s worried, and so’s Paps. Sans won’t tell me, but I bet he is too.” The ball rolls back to her. She sits up, plucks it from the grass, and holds it between her scaly hands. “Even the kid’s worried.”

“Frisk t-told you too?”

“Yeah, they came up to me. Asked me how adults can be tired, even if they sleep. Even if they eat. Even if they have people around them. I couldn’t tell them what’s up. I’ve always got energy!” Throwing the ball into the air, you watch as it floats up past your window, out of eye sight, and then back down again. You feel your throat tighten up. Are you really so dumb you didn’t notice? They’re worried about you? Do they think you’ll run away again? Are they planning on stopping you? Will Frisk run too, just like before? Where would they fall, when the lines are drawn in the sand?

“You… you wouldn’t understand. You’ve… you’ve never had something like th-that happen. Some things just… just steal away your energy. And th-then it keeps going. It kind of… eats you away.” Though you can hear Alphys’s voice dwindling away, the muggy heat doesn’t bother you any longer. You feel ice-cold. No. She couldn’t know what happened. Nobody knows, nobody’s _mentioned_. It’s in _your_ mind. You’re the dumb one who believes their nightmares could be true.

The other ones are real. Before the underground. Why would these ones be any different?

“Alphie, you told me that was getting better!”

“It is!” The scientist sighs, looking over at her wife. “It… it is. You listen. I can-can get over it. I have gotten over it. But I’m st-still…”

“Recovering. I know. And I understand. I love you, babe.”

With that, you lean over and pull you window closed. Thanking Toriel for her seasonal hinge-greasing, you shut your window to block out the world. And into your homework you dive once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, la dee daaa~~ So once, when I was a wee lamb, my mom found those little balls to make ice cream with. I channeled that, seeing as how I am an ice cream fiend, and I love it to death. All flavors. 
> 
> My favorite, though is a weird flavor. I had it in Korea. It's apple mint. No trust me, it's delicious. (It may also be a sherbert flavor, for which my stomach is grateful. Milk and my tum-tum don't mix.)
> 
> In any case, things are starting to pick up moreso than before. Soon, you shall see the end. I mean, there's only one more chapter left, after all.)


	6. Starlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More talking. Sans finally gets you to open up. And he misses most of a meteor shower for it.

The August sun beat down on the house, warming the roof tiles with its heat. The flowers seemed to enjoy the rays too. Frisk had insisted on planting sunflowers that year. Their cheery faces turned to face the yellow death ball as the kid played in the garden with their friends. On the weekends, you were out there too, reading something or playing something else. They kept asking you to join in their game, but you were what, twice their age? Their friends weren’t so keen on you joining in, either. Especially when it came to handball. You thrashed them at that game. Because you were literally twice their age. Unfair advantages aside, though, you were quite good at it still.

Tonight, though, the yard is quiet. Opening your window, you are pleased to find that the war between the fence and the wind has finally finished. And the breeze has won. The gusts pick up the loose papers on your desk before you pack them away.

“Human! Please come deliver the ice cream to Sans. Toriel doesn’t want Frisk on the roof.”

“Alright.” Truth be told, you don’t want the kid on the roof, either. At least you had experience clambering up on roofs. There’d been more than one house where that was the only peace and quiet you’d get. Some even had flat roofs. Flat enough that you could lay there in the summer and sleep beneath the stars.

Slipping down the stairs, you see Papyrus in his favorite apron, two bowls in his hands. “There is one for you, too.” He hands you the bowls before adding, “Sans is moving his telescope to what he calls a Persnickety meteor shower.”

“Perseid,” you smile.

“That one! It is persnickety, too. He is having trouble finding where they’ll be.”

“Yeah, I’ll bring my constellation chart.”

“Thank you, human! That astronomy class is finally proving useful!”

After climbing the stairs to your room and hip-checking your door open, you plop the bowls of ice cream onto your desk to search through the drawers. Shoved at the back of one, you find the chart and a little compass. It’ll come in handy. You pocket those, folding the star chart in fourths to fit in your jeans, and clamber out the window.

Now, it may seem ridiculous, what you’re doing. But your window and Sans’s window look onto a small, almost flat roofline. From there, you can clamber up another half-story onto the top-most roof of the house, where the older skeleton is.

Though you thought he would leave the telescope up there, he doesn’t. Every night that summer, he brought it down and gingerly slipped it through his window. The supports, though, he leaves up there. “Gotta keep it looking sharp,” he told you one morning, “It was a present, after all.”

“Hey Sans,” you call out as you sling one leg onto the top most roof. “Papyrus sends ice cream.”

“Awesome. Thanks.” He pulls back from the telescope, looking towards the dim sky. “I know I’m pointed the right way ‘round, but I can’t seem to find ‘em.”

“Well, it’s not dark yet. They’re light, it’s light, and the sun kind of wins all light battles.” You shrug. “Here,” you add, pulling the compass and the star chart from your pocket. “Paps thought you might want to borrow these.”

“My brother’s the best, isn’t he?” Blowing on the compass, he stares at it, turning himself this way and that. “Huh. Looks like I’m pointed the exact _opposite_ direction that I should be.”

Spooning ice cream into your mouth, you mumble, “Yeah, guess so.”

“It’s so hard to orient yourself up here,” he says, stumbling around his telescope to twist it around. “How can you tell what way is up or down?”

“North’s usually up on maps. It’s just not up in life.” You keep eating the ice cream. Unlike the butterscotch cinnamon of a couple months ago, this one is mint and apple. Sounds weird, but it is _super_ refreshing. Perfect for the weather. As you watch Sans make fine adjustments to his telescope, he smiles at you.

“Wanna check and see if I’m right?”

Shrugging, you stand up. The spoon of ice cream is still melting in your mouth as you step towards him. Leaning forwards, you stare into the telescope. The Perseus constellation winks back at you. “Yep, that’s the one.”

“Great. Just got to sit back and wait for the sun to go to bed.”

“Don’t tell Frisk that. They take your word as gospel.”

“Only when they don’t take yours.”

“Sure.”

He looks at you, then flops next to the melty bowl of ice cream. “Let’s make a rule.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re not allowed to say ‘sure,’ and I’m not allowed to make puns. Deal?”

“Mine seems easier than yours.”

“Not when you hear what I have to say.”

With a sigh, you sit down. “Do I want to hear it?”

“Maybe.” Rubbing the back of his skull, he looks at the ice cream. “So, this bowl of ice cream used to be ingredients. And those ingredients used to be other things. Milk used to be grass that a cow ate. That grass used to be a seed, that seed used to be other things and so on, right? There’s a path to how the universe works.”

“Yeah, I mean. There’s a _Milky_ Way.” You look at him. In his eyes is the light of frustration and joy. It’s weird, that little spots of light can show so much emotion. “You can’t pun, but I can.”

“Sure,” he continues. “Sure, ya can. Anywhoozle…” You sputter out a laugh. “ _Any_ whoozle, life has a path to it. The light of the sun shines on the moon and we can see it. That’s the path the light takes. One thing leads to the next. And you can’t go backwards. Like… I can’t take this bowl of ice cream and go backwards in time to make it grass.”

“Simple cause and effect. And well… linear time.”

“Yeah. Newton’s Third Law, basically.” He looks over at you to make sure you’re up to speed. “So, what if I told you, that that’s all bullshit?”

You look over your ice cream bowl at him. Despite the fact that your summer class was particle physics, your professor is  _very_ excited to discuss anything even remotely related. Even if it's in the realm of science fiction. (And after the Underground, things that seemed impossible feel more possible now.) This was one of those topics she liked do ramble about. At length. “You talking multiverse theory?”

“What?” His surprise made you pause in your ice cream demolition.

“So, each choice we make is a fork in the road. Choose ‘yes,’ you lead one way. Choose ‘no,’ you lead the other. Each choice becomes a new timeline, a new universe, a new system of choices and happenings. There are infinite of those because there are infinite choices and infinite permeations. Two different kinds of infinites, but both keep going to infinity and beyond.” You smile at his frustration. He can’t pun and it’s wonderful.

“Sure,” he nods. “Like that. Except, what if someone chooses to go back.”

Your fork stays in your bowl. Your hands are still. “That’s not possible. That’d be time travel at best, or going to a different dimension at worst. And this is all theoretical.”

“Yeah, still all theory,” Sans mumbles, rubbing his skull. “But what if someone did. Do you think they would remember?”

“Seeing as how they’re the same person they were the instant before and the instant they did make that choice, yeah. Probably. It’s all theory though. I mean, sub-atomically, nobody is the same because quarks and electrons and such keep changing. And if we measure it the outcome is different. So, we’re always different. But we’re still the same person, as far as we can figure.” The look he gives you is so confused and so elated it’s as though his skull could explode, that the tides of emotion are too strong to control. “Physics?”

“Yeah, _sub-atomic_ physics. You understand quarks?”

“It was in my physics textbook. It was on my test.” Which was to say, you _had_ to.

“Wow. You _are_ a smart kid.” He took another spoonful of ice cream, sitting in thoughtful silence. “I could trust you to try and change your choice,” he mused.

You almost fall off the roof in response. His hand shoots out, you feel your heart turn blue, and suddenly the 9.8 m/s2 of gravity’s pull on you becomes a lot stronger. Maybe like three Gs, or more. You hazard a guess at 5Gs, but that’s pushing roller coaster level of stuck-to-the-floor strength. No, maybe this was more?

Looking at the terror and confusion in your expression, he chuckles, releasing his hold on your soul. “Just looking out for ya. I wouldn’t ever use it on ya for… other things.” The flash of blue in his eye socket turns back to its white blip. “What rocked your boat?”

“No puns.”

“It wasn’t a pun. More a turn of phrase.” He gives you a winking smile. 

Staring at him, you cross your arms and pronounce, “Pass.”

“Question still stands. What made you almost jump off the roof?”

Suddenly, you don’t want to look at him anymore. Instead, you find your bowl of melting ice cream interesting. More interesting than the meteors beginning to streak overhead.

Sighing, Sans holds his hand towards you. “Fine. Can’t push ya. But the show’s starting, and you shouldn’t miss it ‘cause of me.” With your own sigh, you put your bowl into his empty one and stand.

He’s leaning into the eyepiece of the telescope, with such a wondrous look on his face that he looks like a kid. A tired kid, you muse. One who’s seen a lot, felt a lot, and wants to help you. A lot. Beaming at you, he straightens up and gestures for you to look into the lens too.

You’ve seen meteor showers many times before. As a kid, staring at the sky on the roof. Watching the heavens fall on your safe haven. At the observatory, watching on a screen at a zoomed-in, pixelated version. It was nothing compared to this.

The streaks of light are clear as crystal. They sing through the sky, streaking from the constellation in graceful arcs. Sans’s telescope was just the right focal length to see them. You can’t say anything—all you can do is breathe out a sigh of amazement. No wonder he was looking like a kid who’d one first prize at the county fair. This is extraordinary.

“Amazing, right?” When you look up, you can see Sans bouncing on the balls of his feet. “This one’s my favorite, I’ve decided. So bright! And so many of them! The Delta Aquariids were kind of pitiful. Not worth the time it took to set up the telescope.”

You hum in agreement as he leans forward to look through the lenses. Watching the stars falling with the naked eye wasn’t as miraculous, but it was nice. You sit down on the roof, watching the lights blink past the two of you.

A through wheels through your mind. You wonder how many times he and Papyrus and Toriel have contrived to get the two of you alone together. After Sans’s attempts at talking to you the younger skeleton and the goat monster had let off.

Listening to the house below you, nothing stands out. The sounds are usual, and through the suburban sounds around you not much else is intelligible. There’s enough background noise that no one should be able to hear. Least of all Frisk. They're probably asleep by now, tuckered out from a hard day’s play.

“Sans,” you say. He doesn’t respond, but you can feel him growing quiet behind the telescope. “What if… I have gone back.” You can hear him freeze up, even though he doesn’t make a sound. “What if I did. Go back. And do things again?” This time, you can hear him move, move to sit down. You both flank the telescope which points, viewer-less, at the sky. “What if I went back, did things again, failed, and… well. And died?”

You can feel his hand on your own. You can feel fingernails digging into your palm. You realize, blandly, that those are your fingernails. And now your palms are bleeding. Just a bit. Opening up one hand, Sans sneaks his digits between yours, keeping you from puncturing skin again.

“What if I did all that, and died over and over again?”

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he shuffles around to sit right in front of you. His other hand grabs yours, breaks apart your rigid fingers, and files skeletal digits between yours.

“What if I did all that, and I had no choice?”

In the quiet of the night, Sans—the monster most excited by space and all things extra-terrestrial—turns his back on it. For you.

“Frisk,” he breathes out. You nod your head. There is so much meant in that one word.

And then words start to tumble out. In pieces at first. Questions, fractured phrases that don’t have answers. Pieces of a puzzle you yourself have been completing beneath your consciousness. These portions of a picture that you haven’t allowed yourself to fit with each other. But the words keep slipping from your mind’s grasp, and the bits start to form. And then you both understand.

When you fell with Frisk in your arms, those years ago, you stayed normal. You were just a human, with nothing special about you save circumstance. But Frisk, something about them latched on to the fabric of the Underground and they shone. Something in them changed. Sans explained as best he could, from your fragmented pieces and the little he’d been able to weave together himself.

Frisk could save. To turn back time in a closed loop that destroyed one universe in favor of another. They could do that, until their determination ran out. Determination, a thing at the heart of their very being. The same determination that turned those monsters into amalgamates. It was a terrifying, volatile kind of power.  

He reasoned, you were more persistent. You may be determined, but not like them. Not enough to cut the fabric of space-time, ignoring space itself and severing time, looping back, and creating something new. It shouldn’t be possible. But they did it.

In the little, cut off section of the universe, the Underground allowed it. Why, nobody was sure. You guessed magic, and Sans guessed luck. Both could be true, or wrong, but at this point it didn’t really matter.

And as the monsters attacked you—since you protected Frisk—they were there, making sure nothing wrong happened. When you died, their determination brought you back. When you failed, they fixed it. That dream you had, when Asgore lay in dust at your feet as you killed him? You did do that, once. Then they looped back, cutting out that reality. That dream you had, when Flowey killed Asgore? That too, was real. They just cut it out of space-time. A technician cutting movie rolls, they snipped the frames where you failed and replaced them with a different take. And replaced, and replaced and replaced.

Some places, they cut so many times that the film roll wasn’t clean. There were edges and gaps, bits and pieces of the wrong take left over. Those you could remember. Slivers of the endings or the beginnings. There were so many cuts that they missed, just enough to let the memories through.

You couldn’t remember when Papyrus killed you. But he probably did. He just didn’t do it enough. Undyne probably killed you. So, too, did all the monsters of the underground. Even a Whimsun, if you let it.

Even Sans, at some point, could’ve murdered you. But you would’ve remembered—he's sure of that. At this point, you didn’t want to ask why.

It feels… relieving to let this all off your chest. But it's so tiring, too. He'd let go of your hands by now. Now he’s sat next to you, both of you leaning onto each other for support. The night is late, and it’s getting cold. But neither of you wants to move. “Do you remember?” You ask him, hands shaking.

“No, not really. I just know they happened. And I—we—couldn’t do anything about it.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. And you mean it.

“Don’t be,” he says. And he means it.

“Does it get better?” You ask.

“You’re off to a good start, kid.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here, my dear reader, is the end. Thank you for coming to this lovely little affair. I hope you survived the journey.
> 
> I don't know exactly /what/ I was working through as I wrote this, but now that I'm done and I've edited it, I feel much better. I don't know how, or why, or exactly what I feel better about, but I do.
> 
> Perhaps it's just finishing something, for a change.
> 
> Anyways, if you would like to read any of my other works, feel free. There's just two at the moment. There may be more, in the future. After I've delved into my hard drive and searched through my online drives. Perhaps there'll be three soon! Oh my! So productive.

**Author's Note:**

> Baby's first fic (that I've ever posted). Writing in second person+present tense is hard, and I suck at keeping things in the right tense. Let me know if I slip up, and I'll edit this as best as I can. The story's centered around some alluding to the past, lots of heavy hinting, and a few key scenes. The whole thing's done, by the way. I'm just editing the last bits like any obsessive writer would. I'll do my best to post the rest of the chapters at regular intervals, but ya'know. No guarantees, my friends.


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